Canon 14-bit raw on 30-Bit display only at 24bpp

[iXX]

I just registered FPV after reading it supports 30-bit LCD monitors, but i'm having a hard time getting it to display Canon EOS 5D MKII RAW files in anything other than 24bpp

According to the information from Canon here
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller ... cleID=2748
My Camera captures data in full 14bit/channel glory or 16384x16384x16384 colour gradients
Somewhere i read you needed to enable Highlight Tone priority, but it didn't make any difference.

My workstation has a new ATI FirePRO graphics card connected via display port to a Dell U2711 display which as an IPS 10-bit panel.
30-bit is enabled in the driver on the FirePro card and i've also enabled GPU acceleration in FPV
One of the ATI devs sent me a test app to verify that my setup is able to display 30-bit images.

However, whenever i view any of my RAW files, the histogram only states the image is being displayed in 24bits per pixel and the not the 14bits / channel (or at least 10bits) I was expecting.

How can i get FPV to display the RAW files in deep colour depth on this 30-bit panel or am i missing something here ?

I imported one of the RAW files into bridge and then Photoshop CS4 using 16-bits per channel format and then saved this out as a 120MB tiff file. When i open this file in FPV it states the colour depth as now being 48 bpp.

Any help please.

[Axel]

Two things: first all our codecs returns 24bpp data at this time. You may want to consider Canon's own codec which can return 48bpp from Canon raw files. Next, what is important is not what your card can do with manufacturer demo software or full-screen 3D applications tailored to your specific card, but what is your Windows desktop bit depth. Are you running your display in 30-bit mode in Window's standard display properties?

If you have both a 48bit codec and running your Windows desktop in 30-bit mode, then FPV should automatically select an appropriate internal bit depth to work with. The program supports all Windows 7 desktop display modes, namely 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut (scRGB), and 48-bit scRGB, and all existing pixel formats.

[iXX]

Many thanks for the reply Axel.

At this stage 30bit colour is only available via 3D on both ATI FireGL/FirePro and NVIDIA QuadroFX professional graphics solutions.
Photoshop CS4 can only display images in 30bit by using the GPU to effectively turn images into 30bit textures, or at least this is my current understanding.

As far as i'm aware, there is no facility on the PC to enable a deep colour "30-bit" desktop on any graphics card even under Windows 7. Or if the O/S can do this, the drivers guys at ATI and NVIDIA aren't currently enabling it in this way.

I had assumed your application already did this as you have GPU acceleration and your recent changes makes a specific mention to supporting 30bit mode. I realise I may have misunderstood the line below, but i can't see how you could support it - without supporting it, if you see what i mean.

"1.0.121.0 - 2009/12/07 - Added support for 30-bit display mode (Win7) and Direct3D 9Ex (Vista), bug fixes, optional alternate CMS"

So if you can't display deep colour images on a 30-bit enabled monitor what does the above statement mean ?
I actually found your application using google search "display canon raw files support 30-bit display" FPV was no.4 on the first page.

So are you planning to support the display of deep colour images using the only available mechanisms available today on the PC - i.e. via using 3D (OpenGL?) like Photoshop does ?

With Dell now selling very affordable 24" & 27" deep colour monitors and almost all pro graphics cards supporting deep colour via display port I think this is a very important feature that photographers are going to want in very near future.

Thanks !

[Axel]

FastPictureViewer currently supports two 30-bit and one 48-bit display mode, in addition to 16 and 24-bit modes. When your card enables 30-bit desktop, the program automatically switches to a 30-bit internal datapath and use all the available bit depth without truncation. What is shown on the program's histogram window is the bit depth of the source image. The bit depth of the display is shown on the Windows display properties.

I you install a 48bpp codec, FPV also use it and perform color management in 16-bit per channel on Windows 7, optionally using a high precision floating point color engine, then convert the pixels to the appropriate display format in use on the desktop. The datapath between the image container and the display is as wide as the codec and display driver allows, and I believe no other image viewer can pretend this to date.

As such, FastPictureViewer supports 30-bit display mode (and beyond), provided that you can actually switch your desktop to the desired higher bit depth, something Windows 7 supports if your card provides such a mode. On the other hand, Windows desktop applications will never display 30-bit colors on a 24-bit desktop, just like you'll never see 24-bit colors if your desktop mode is set to 16-bit.

As a side note, Photoshop never displayed anything beyond 24bpp on any hardware or platform (their display engine is 24-bit and no amount of hacking (or marketing) is going to change that anytime soon). Some card manufacturers made plug-ins specially tailored to their hardware that displayed higher bit depth on full-screen secondary displays, but Photoshop itself never supported anything beyond 24bpp on the display side, nor will CS5 and most likely not CS6 either (and this is understandable as their code legacy is huge).

The succint desctiption of build 1.0.121.0 is perfectly accurate: 30-bit display mode is supported on Windows 7, provided that your hardware and driver supports it and that you can actually enable such a mode.

There is not much I can say beyond this, you now have to turn to your card manufacturer and ask *them* when they plan to actually support the 30-bit modes they advertize, for general use on the desktop. They should provide you with a display driver with 30-bit mode enabled in the standard Windows display properties and course you have to run Windows 7 first, as such support will never be added back to older operating systems.

[Jetset]

Two things: first all our codecs returns 24bpp data at this time. You may want to consider Canon's own codec which can return 48bpp from Canon raw files. Next, what is important is not what your card can do with manufacturer demo software or full-screen 3D applications tailored to your specific card, but what is your Windows desktop bit depth. Are you running your display in 30-bit mode in Window's standard display properties?

If you have both a 48bit codec and running your Windows desktop in 30-bit mode, then FPV should automatically select an appropriate internal bit depth to work with. The program supports all Windows 7 desktop display modes, namely 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut (scRGB), and 48-bit scRGB, and all existing pixel formats.

Can you give quick instructions on how to setup FPV with the FPV Codec Pack to use the Canon codec instead of the one in your FPV Codec pack please?

Colin